The Empire Trilogy (4 page)

“Ah, things were different before the war. You could buy a good bottle of whiskey for four and sixpence,” Mr O'Neill said. “It was those beastly women that started the rot.”

“They took advantage of their sex,” his wife agreed. “They blew up a house that Lloyd George was going to move into. They damaged the Coronation Chair. They dug up the greens of many lovely golf-courses and burned people's letters. Is that a way for a woman to behave? It never pays to give in to such people. If it hadn't been for the war....”

“...In which the women of England jolly well pulled their weight in the boat, more than their weight, I take my hat off to them. They deserved the vote. But the British public doesn't give in to violence. They didn't then and they won't now. Take that Derby in which the woman killed herself. The King's horse was lying fifth and was probably out of the running...but if Craiganour had fallen the anger of England would have been terrible to behold.”

Abruptly the Major noticed that Viola O'Neill, whose long hair was plaited into childish pigtails, who wore some kind of grey tweed school uniform, and who could scarcely have been more than sixteen years of age (plump and pretty though she was), was nevertheless looking him straight in the eye in a meaningful way. Embarrassed, he dropped his gaze to the empty plate in front of him.

As for Ripon, he was plainly bored. He had resumed a more orthodox sitting position and, with legs crossed, was tapping experimentally at his knee reflex with a teaspoon. The Major watched him drowsily. Now that he had eaten he was finding it an agony to stay awake and at the same time was pain-fully aware of being hunted by Miss O'Neill's importunate eyes. Fortunately, just as he was feeling unable to resist for a moment longer some overpoweringly sedative remarks that Boy O'Neill was making about his schooldays, there was a diversion. A large, fierce-looking man in white flannels stepped from behind a luxuriant fern at which the Major had happened to be looking with drugged eyes. He said: “Quick, you chaps! Some unsavoury characters have been spotted lurking in the grounds. Probably Shinners.”

The tea-drinkers goggled at him.

“Quick!” he repeated, twitching a tennis racket in his right hand. “They're probably looking for guns. Ripon, Boy, arm yourselves and follow me. You too, Major, delighted to make your acquaintance, I know you'll want to be in on this. Come on, Boy, you're not too old for a scrap!”

In the semi-darkness the old doctor stirred imperceptibly.

“Damn fool!” he muttered.

The fierce man in flannels was Angela's father Edward, of course. There was no mistaking that stiff, craggy face with its accurately clipped moustache and broken nose (at least not for the Major, who had studied his daughter's letters so assiduously). The broken nose, for example, was the result of having boxed for Trinity in a bout against the notorious Kevin Clinch, a Roman Catholic and a Gaelic speaker whose merciless fists had been a byword in those days (so Angela said, anyway). The savage Clinch (the Major remembered with a chuckle), mouthing incomprehensible oaths through his bleeding lips, had got as good as he gave, until he had finally succeeded in flattening “Father” with a lucky punch. Time and again the elder Spencer had been battered to the canvas, time and again he had risen to demonstrate English pluck and tenacity against the superior might of his Celtic adversary. The Major imagined him stretched out at last, his fists still twitching automatically like the limbs of a decapitated chicken. What difference had it made that Edward had ended the contest horizontal and motionless in spite of all his efforts? Why, none at all. He had proved his point. Besides, the game's the thing, it doesn't matter who wins. Besides, Clinch was a stone heavier.

As he followed the others down a corridor the Major noticed Edward's ears, which he also knew about—that is, he knew why they were so remarkably flattened against his skull, the reason being his mother's horror of ears which stuck out. They had been taped back against his skull throughout his childhood, an intervention which the Major considered to have been a happy one. The rugged forehead, the heavy brows, the stony set of the jaw would have been too harsh if they had not been countered by those winsomely folded ears. But Edward turned at this moment and glanced back at the Major, who saw in his eyes a mildness and intelligence, even a hint of mockery, that did not go at all with his leonine features. For a moment he even suspected that Edward had divined his thoughts...but now they had reached Edward's study, a room smelling strongly of dogs, leather and tobacco. It turned out to contain a staggering amount of sporting equipment piled haphazardly on an ancient chaise-longue scarred with bulging horsehair wounds. Shotguns and cricket stumps were stacked indiscriminately with fishing-rods, squash and tennis rackets (excellent ones made by Gray, Russell's of Portarlington), odd tennis shoes and mildewed cricket bats.

“Take your pick. More in the gun room if those won't do. You'll find the ammo over there.” Edward pointed at a drawer which had been removed from a sideboard and was lying on the floor beside the empty, blackened grate. A huge and shaggy Persian cat was asleep on the pile of scarlet cartridges it contained, scarcely bothering to open its yellow eyes as it was lifted away and deposited on a brass-mounted elephant's foot.

By now they had been joined by two or three other men in white flannels who were also rummaging for ammunition to suit their respective firearms; evidently a tennis match had been in progress. The Major, who had no intention of shooting anyone on his first day in Ireland if he could possibly avoid it, tugged dubiously at a .22 rifle which had become entangled with a waterproof wader, a warped tennis racket and hopelessly tangled coils of fishing-line. Ripon, meanwhile, had discovered a plumed cocked hat on the mantelpiece and having shaken a cloud of dust from it was adjusting it in front of a mirror. He then removed one of a pair of crossed rapiers from the wall and stuck it through the buttoned arch of his braces. This done, he picked up a javelin he found standing in the corner behind the door and began to tease the cat with it.

“Oh, for God's sake, Ripon!” muttered Edward testily. And then: “If everyone's ready we'll sally forth.”

“How incredibly Irish it all is!” thought the Major wonderingly. “The family seems to be completely mad.”

A tall, stout man in a dark-green uniform with a shiny black leather belt was standing in the foyer, picking his nose and looking abstractedly at the white marble bottom of the Venus figure. He stared in surprise at Edward, who was still holding the tennis racket in one hand but now brandished a service revolver in the other, as if about to take part in some complicated gladiatorial combat. He shifted his gaze from Edward to the men in white flannels with shotguns broken over their arms. Nor did he seem reassured by the appearance of Ripon with his javelin and plumed hat.

“All right, Sergeant. Just show us where you think the blighters may be lurking.” The sergeant indicated respectfully that all he wanted to do was use the telephone; the men might be dangerous.

“All the better. We're more than a match for them. Now, tell me what makes you think they're hanging around here...” And Edward put a paternal hand on the sergeant's shoulder and steered him out on to the sunlit drive.

As the makeshift white-flannelled army straggled chuckling towards the trees someone drawled: “I suppose we should be asking if the womenfolk are safe.”

“They're safe when you aren't around, anyway,” came the reply and everyone laughed cheerfully. Ripon had attached himself to the Major and had begun to tell him about a curious incident that had occurred at a tennis party not far away at Valebridge a few days earlier. A heavily armed bicycle patrol had surprised two suspicious individuals (no doubt Sinn Feiners) tampering with the canal bridge. One of them had fled across the fields and made good his escape. The other, who had a bicycle and was disinclined to leave it, had been confident that he could outpedal the Royal Irish Constabulary. Although for the first fifty yards the fugitive, pedalling desperately, had swerved to and fro in front of the peelers almost within grabbing range, he had then slowly pulled away. By the time they had slowed their pursuit to draw their revolvers the Sinn Feiner had increased his lead to almost a hundred yards. He slowed too, however, when the first shots began to whistle round his ears and had possibly even decided to give himself up when disaster struck the pursuers. One of the constables had removed both hands from the handlebars in order to take a steady, two-handed aim at the cyclist ahead. Unfortunately, just as he was squeezing the trigger he had veered wildly, colliding with his companions. The result was that all three had taken a nasty fall. As they had painfully got to their feet and dusted themselves off, expecting to see their quarry vanishing over the brow of the hill, they saw to their surprise that he too was slowing down. They hurriedly straightened their handlebars and, standing on the pedals to accelerate, sped towards the Sinn Feiner; the chain had come off his bicycle. Instead of awaiting capture he had abandoned his bicycle and fled into the drive of the house where the tennis party was going on. What a shock the tennis players and spectators had got when all of a sudden a shabbily dressed young man had sped out of the shrubbery and across the court to gallop full tilt into the wire netting (which he evidently hadn't seen)! Under the impact he had crumpled to his knees. But though he seemed stunned, almost immediately he began to pull himself up by gripping the wire links with his fingers. Then someone had hurled a tennis ball at him. He had turned round as if surprised to see so many faces watching him. Then another tennis ball had been thrown, and another. At this the man had come to his senses and veered along the netting in search of an opening. Not finding one he had leaped up and clung to the netting to drag himself upwards. But by now every-one was on their feet hurling tennis balls. Then one of the women had joined in, throwing an empty glass but he still managed to pull himself up. Someone (Ripon thought it might have been old Dr Ryan, the “senile old codger” they had been having tea with) had shouted for them to stop. But nobody paid any attention. A tennis racket went revolving through the air and only missed by inches. Someone tore off his tennis shoes and threw them, one of them hitting the fugitive in the small of the back. He had paused now to gather strength. Then he was climbing again. A beer bottle shattered against one of the steel supports beside his head and a heavy walking-shoe struck him on the arm. Then, at last, a racket press had gone spinning through the air to hit him on the back of the head. He had dropped like a sack of potatoes and lay there unconscious. But when the breathless, red-faced peelers had finally arrived panting to arrest their suspect it was to find the tennis players and their wives still hurling whatever they could find at the prone and motionless Sinn Feiner...

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the Major. “What an incredible story! Frankly, I find it a bit hard to believe that people would throw things at an unconscious man. Did you see all this happen yourself?”

“Well, no, I wasn't actually present. But I've spoken to a lot of people who were there and...but what I wanted to say...”

“I must ask Dr Ryan, the ‘senile old codger' as you call him.”

“But I haven't finished,” cried Ripon. “The thing is, it turned out later that this fellow wasn't a Shinner at all. He was just repairing the bridge with another workman.”

“Ah, but that's absurd,” the Major began. “Why should they be running away if they weren't...?” But Ripon's attention had been diverted and he was no longer listening. With a contemptuous smile he was watching his father lead the way into the cedar grove, beyond which the “unsavoury characters” were thought to have been seen (though by whom was still unclear to the Major).

Revolver and tennis racket at the ready, Edward had now reached the broken wall of loose stones that separated the cedar grove from the orchard. The orchard was a large one (there was an even bigger one on the other side of the road and in better condition, the breathless and yellow-faced O'Neill had just informed the Major), thickly planted and stretching over almost three acres from the kitchen garden to the road; at one time this orchard alone must have provided a great harvest of fruit, but for some years the trees had gone without pruning; consequently the apples were left for the most part sunless, shrivelled and bitter on trees that had grown as thick as hedges.

Edward was looking around cautiously. He stepped over the wall. There was a rustle in the undergrowth. He fired two deafening shots. A rabbit flew away, careering wildly through the trees. A man in flannels at Edward's side snapped shut his shotgun and fired both barrels. The noise made the Major's stomach lurch. It was the first time in months that he had heard gun-fire.

The sergeant was looking dismayed but helpless as Edward stepped back over the wall, smiling.

“Both missed. No shifty individuals in the undergrowth. Perhaps we'd better have a look through the out-houses just to make sure, though.” He led the way through the orchard and into the kitchen garden which was protected from the north-easterly wind by a high wall. A number of cabbage whites fluttered peacefully here and there in the late afternoon sunlight, but there was no other sign of life. One by one they trailed through potting-sheds, a laundry house, a small conservatory glowing with ripe red tomatoes, the apple house (in which great mounds of green apples had been piled almost to the ceiling without any apparent thought for their preservation), an empty barn, the garages which housed a Daimler and a Standard, empty stables with feed-boxes still stuffed with dusty straw...and then they straggled back again into the sunshine.

“Let's finish that set,” one of the men in flannels said. “I think the whole thing was just a bally ruse of Edward's to avoid facing my deadly serve.”